With liberals voting for Democrat Kyrsten Sinema and conservatives voting Vernon Parker, the question for moderates and independents is: which way should we go?

Here are 5 final thoughts on the race.

1. It’s the Economy, Silly.

Just two recessions ago, Kyrsten Sinema proposed more than $2 billion in NEW state taxes … DURING the recession. NO ONE supports raising taxes in a recession – it is well-known to make recessions WORSE.

Then, this past June, she proposed ending ALL the current tax relief set to expire December 31. This with our economy growing at a paltry rate of under 2% annually. (The world’s second-biggest economy, in China, is growing at 8% annually, and they are worried it’s not growing faster.)

She either does not understand basic economics, or lets her liberal ideology cloud her judgment. Either way, her policies would doom our struggling economy.

The self-anointed “experts” say independents and moderates “don’t care about” foreign policy or our national defense. That is ridiculous. On these important issues, the differences are stark.

In June 2000, most of us were rolling our eyes as the Green Party called for a FIFTY PERCENT CUT in defense spending over 10 years. Just 4 months later, Kyrsten Sinema WENT TO WORK FOR THEM.

In the ensuing years, she OPPOSED removing the Taliban in Afghanistan, even though they were protecting the al Qaeda terrorists who killed thousands of Americans on 9/11.

She OPPOSED killing Osama bin Laden.

She called for the CLOSING OF LUKE AIR FORCE base.

She said she supported “world disarmament.” Because the bad guys would never cheat on such things, right?

And she was NOT a friend of our steadfast ally, Israel.

Suddenly, after winning her primary this Fall, she said none of that mattered anymore because she has relatives serving in the military!

Sorry. It DOES matter.

Vernon Parker has a long and consistent record supporting a strong national defense, and is a champion of Luke Air Force base.

Our nation’s security matters, and on this issue, it is not even close. Vernon Parker deserves your vote.

3. A 60-day Moderate.

Kyrsten Sinema has been a moderate for 60 days. For the TWO DECADES leading up to Fall 2012, she was a highly vocal, extremely consistent Far-Left, Liberal activist and community organizer.

Yes, people can change. Ronald Reagan began as a Democrat. But there is ZERO reason to believe in Sinema’s radical moderate makeover for the last 60 days. Just look at HER OWN WORDS on the matter.

Asked in 2005 why she ran as a Democrat in 2004 after losing as a Green, she replied:

“Well, you saw the results from the first campaign, didn’t you? Nothing about my political beliefs changed, nothing about my ideology changed. It was a practical decision.”

She elaborated on that in her 2009 how-to book for liberal activists:

“[In the fall of 2008, after a candidate debate,] a constituent came up to me and said, ‘Sinema, you don’t even sound like a liberal anymore.’ … As we parted ways, I told the voter that I believed in all the progressive values that I’d always held dear, but I’d finally learned to talk about [them differently.]” (pp. 16-17)

She also wrote in that book:

“Research in an electoral campaign is very simply the polling and focus-group work that strategic campaigns engage in …. When you conduct good research, you will learn how to frame your message (that’s fancy for ‘how you talk about something’)….I’ve become a huge fan of research.” (pp. 165-66)

Everything she has said in this general election campaign has been polled and focus-group tested to OBSCURE her true, liberal beliefs.

But as she admitted in candid moments in her book and in past interviews, she is the same extreme liberal she has always been, she just knows not to admit it anymore.

Vernon Parker is the same guy he has always been. Common-sense conservative. Problem-solver. Works with both Democrats and Republicans. Has not forgotten his roots – he came from a tough urban area. He knows education made it possible for him to escape his environment and give his children opportunities that he now wants ALL AMERICANS TO SHARE IN.

Sinema is a Trojan Horse candidate, trying to sneak into Congress before you realize she is the same radical she has been for 20 years.

Until she is straight with voters, or explains HOW she suddenly woke up a moderate 60 days ago – was she hit over the head at a 2012 Labor Day Parade? – she is simply not a wise choice for Congress.

4. Leeches.

We could, perhaps, forgive her attacks on moms, and calling them “leeches,” IF she had apologized. Instead, she went from outright denial, to later claiming it was a joke. Pretty offensive joke. But it clearly was not a joke. It was her far-Left beliefs slipping out in what she felt was a friendly interview.

But it turns out this was NOT the only time she attacked work at home moms. In an interview with Phoenix’s ‘N Touch magazine, she said:

“I feel we are regressing in our society. There is this rebirth of the idea that a woman should be at home and shouldn’t be working.”

Stunning. Sinema believes home-based women are not working, and moms who work from home to raise their kids represent society “regressing.” I know her views are common among liberals, but it is still shocking to see it so starkly in print.

5. Her sudden resume gap.

Finally, Kyrsten Sinema is not just running from her liberal policy views. She is running from her own bio. People who run from their own biography make me suspicious, and should make you suspicious also.

Then, this spring, as she geared up for her Congressional race, she quietly changed her law license status to “inactive,” and once she won her Democrat Primary, she wiped her criminal defense work off of her campaign bio entirely.

Now, I’m not going to snow you: I am troubled by her proudly representing killers. I’ve always sided with the victims.

But it’s certainly her right to do so, and it is part of our legal system.

Bottom line: if you are going to make your money working for murderers, at least be woman enough to defend it. Don’t do it for six years then pretend you’ve just been a “social worker” all that time.

I see no similar “resume gap” in Parker’s bio.

On Tuesday, vote Vernon Parker for jobs, economic growth, national security, and fundamental integrity about who he is and what he believes.

That just seems weird until you learn that it is a cause celebre in fringe-Left circles.

You see, until she won her primary this year, she had been an extreme liberal for decades. She even worked for Ralph Nader in 2000 against Al Gore because she believed Gore was too moderate. (I’m not joking – read the link.)

She has trashed Arizona, ASU students, and even Al Gore for not being extreme enough for her tastes.

But YOU get the last laugh on November 6, when you vote for Vernon Parker and force Sinema to face her worst nightmare: staying in Arizona without the ability to damage it from afar with her liberal policies.

Arizona Democrat congressional candidate and criminal defense lawyer Kyrsten Sinema has an unusual affection for politicians and bureaucrats in Washington, DC, and it is a relationship that would endanger Arizona’s families and taxpayers if she were able to get to Congress.

Her US Department of Education fetish

All sensible people love education, and want policies to improve our educational system. But not all policies branded “pro-education” are designed first and foremost to help students; many of them help those in the education industry more.

For example, Sinema seized on Vernon Parker’s wise preference for local control of education decisions and has ruthlessly misrepresented his position. Parker’s education plan is here, but put that aside for a moment and just consider her position. She is the biggest cheerleader of the US Department of Education since failed Democrat President Jimmy Carter created it in the 1970s.

Somehow, Americans put a man on the moon, invented the artificial heart, launched Apple, Microsoft, Target and Coca-Cola, and did it all before the US Department of Education existed. In fact, American K-12 educational achievement has been completely stagnant since the 1970s, as countless studies have demonstrated. We have spent billions of dollars on the massive Ed Dept bureaucracy without making schools better! It’s a failure only a Big Government Liberal like Kyrsten Sinema could forgive.

Too bad Sinema represents murderers rather than bringing civil lawsuits, because the Department of Education should be sued for false advertising.

Sure, you say, K-12 education has made no progress under Ed Dept control, but what about college level learning? Well, as Barack Obama wrote in his book The Audacity of Hope:

“China is graduating eight times as many engineers as the United States every year.”

And as Obama’s jobs council honcho and US jobs exporter Jeffrey Immelt of GE said a few years ago:

“More people will graduate in the United States in 2006 with sports-exercise degrees than electrical-engineering degrees. So, if we want to be the massage capital of the world, we’re well on our way.”

Does ANYONE believe the massive US Department of Education bureaucracy has done anything to address this issue? Of course not.

How about college costs? Since the 1970s, college costs have SOARED, and education inflation dramatically outpaces overall inflation. I would contend the US Ed Dept has contributed to this problem, but even if you don’t want to go there, at least we can all agree that they have not fixed it. Check out this chart, which basically tracks college costs since Jimmy Carter created the Ed Dept.

The Ed Dept also administers college loan programs, but those programs could be run more efficiently and at less cost – and thus be able to help more students – were the Beltway Bandits not taking a cut of every education dollar that flows through the system.

The salary of these workers – who work 9-5, can’t be fired, and have lavish government benefits and pensions – averages over $100,000! [See page Z-21] A nice gig, but a pretty long, 5-hour commute from Maricopa County.

So let’s summarize Sinema’s position on education: The US Department of Education in Washington, DC is essential to our nation’s educational system and cannot be improved, reformed or streamlined. It is better to take a dollar of an Arizonan, send it to Washington, have the Beltway take its cut for bureaucrats, consultants, waste, fraud and abuse, and then cross our fingers and hope that they send some portion of that dollar back to Arizona for its schools.

That’s her position! The notion of keeping that Arizona dollar in Arizona for Arizona’s schools offends her Beltway mentality.

Sinema’s Government Healthcare will be hazardous to your health (and wallet)

Sinema did not just support Obamacare; she helped craft it as a member of Obama’s health care takeover task force. She was there for the bill-signing and supports it to this day! Of course, she can also read polls, and she knows the American people despise the law, so she has started saying the bill has some “stinkers” in it that she promises to change. Yeah, right.

I’m not going to rehash all that is wrong with Obamacare. Among the most shocking provisions is its raid on Medicare funding. Sinema’s Obamacare law will take $716 BILLION from Medicare over the next 10 years to help reduce Obamacare’s massive cost. Seniors deserve better.

What’s ridiculous is that Sinema is actually running a campaign ad boasting that Obamacare provides free birth control! A $16 trillion federal debt, the economy barely growing, Arizonans desperately in need of good jobs, and she is talking about free rubbers.

Wait … what’s that you say? Obamacare does NOT provide free rubbers, which give decent protection against STDs and HIV/AIDS, but DOES give free birth control pills that provide ZERO protection against STDs and HIV/AIDS? Only a government program could provide “free” (i.e., YOU paying for it) stuff so incompetently.

Obamacare must go, but if Sinema gets to Congress, its co-author and cheerleader will fight tooth and nail to protect it.

Literally giving an extra vote to the DC Beltway

Sinema’s support for Washington, DC is not just a rhetorical one. She would not just vote metaphorically for more power in Washington. She LITERALLY supports giving the DC Beltway an extra vote!

As a State Legislator in Arizona, she actually introduced a bill pushing for Washington, DC, to get a vote in Congress – as if the DC Beltway wasn’t already too rich and powerful! She’d cancel your Congressional vote with a new one for Washington. That’s not just goofy, it’s bad policy for your children and grandchildren. And if she gets to Congress, her silly Arizona bill would become a very real Congressional bill.

We can’t afford to send Kyrsten Sinema to Washington. The obvious choice in this election is Vernon Parker.

Democrat congressional candidate and criminal defense lawyer Kyrsten Sinema served for six years in the State House under Republican control, and one year in the State Senate under Republican control. She complained throughout those years that Arizona families were undertaxed. She even called Arizona “our tax-starved state.” Fortunately, Republicans would not let tax increase bills be voted on during her years in office, denying her a chance to raise your taxes. (Now, like a guy who kills his parents then pleads for mercy as an orphan, Sinema boasts she did not vote for tax increases, after complaining for years that the GOP would not act on her tax increase demands!) She must think Arizona voters are stupid … or perhaps leeches. Let’s look at her own words.

[R]aising taxes is more economically sound than cutting vital social services …. In Arizona, there are a number of techniques that we could use …. Broadening the sales tax to include services, closing exemptions on sales tax items, reinstating the state property tax, and eliminating tax credits are just some of the strategies to create a more broad revenue stream to fund Arizona’s important programs. I do not support irresponsible pledges to “not raise taxes” … our tax-starved state relies on.
…
We are a starved budget in a recession…. As mentioned above, I advocate broadening the sales tax to include taxing personal and business services, such as telemarketing, auto repair, and hair and manicure services. This alone would generate roughly $565 million to the state budget per year. I support restoring the sales tax to items currently exempted, such as health club memberships. By restoring the sales tax by closing these exemptions, the state’s revenue would increase about $1.4 billion per year. I support expanding the sales tax to include Internet sales…. I advocate eliminating tax credits such as the education tax credit … and the enterprise zone tax credit.

Wow: by her own calculations, in a failing economy, she is demanding $2 BILLION annually in new state taxes, and that’s not even counting her plan to reinstate the state property tax. She is virtually alone in America in calling for tax increases during a recession.

Separately, she promised to “greatly increase” capital gains taxes on families and “greatly increase” corporate taxes. [“Kyrsten Sinema – Political Positions,” Project Vote Smart 2006.] America already has the highest corporate taxes in the world, which helps drive jobs overseas. Even Barack Obama said he is open to reducing the corporate tax rate. What’s more, guess what happens when corporate taxes are increased? Companies raise their prices. So this is a hidden way for liberal Democrats to stick it to the middle class to fund their pet projects: raise taxes on businesses, and the higher retail prices that result are seldom linked back to the politicians who caused it.

She also opposed a 2008 Arizona ballot initiative to ban all real property sales or transfer taxes, and another one to make it harder to raise taxes or increase government spending by requiring initiatives to pass by a majority of all registered voters. She called them “stinkers” and organized a group to oppose them. [“Unite and Conquer: How to build coalitions that win—and last,” by Kyrsten Sinema (2009), p. 67.]

“this is not the time to be raising taxes on the middle class. Just recently, one of my opponents, Kyrsten Sinema, vowed to repeal the Bush tax cuts in total …. This speaks to her values and approach and I think it is the wrong way to deal with a middle class that is getting battered.”

The Sinema tax increase would nail every middle class taxpayer in America and drive our teetering economy off a cliff. US economic growth in 2012 under President Obama is less than 2% (by contrast, growth in China is around 8%). Her tax increase would send us back into recession.

Finally, consider all her massive promises of more and bigger government programs: where will she get the funding for all of them? As a member of Obama’s health care taskforce, she already helped craft his healthcare takeover bill, Obamacare, which includes a $716 BILLION cut to Medicare over the next 10 years. She can’t pay for all her promises by raiding Medicare — she’ll need to jack up taxes, including on working families and job-creators. That’s bad news for all of us.

Kyrsten Sinema has been quite candid about her plans to raise your taxes. Will you let her? The clear choice for Arizona is Vernon Parker.

Liberal Democrat Richard Carmona’s attack on a professional woman–calling 30-year journalist Candy Crowley of CNN ugly during a live debate–is only the latest in a string of incidents over the years in which liberal Democrats in Arizona have self-destructed when caught off-guard expressing their true beliefs. A Dr. Phil-type might suggest that the constant stress of pretending to be moderate when you are not might be what makes these politicians eventually snap, but putting pop psychology aside, let’s review some other examples, going back in time from Carmona’s slur against women.

“These women who act like staying at home, leeching off their husbands or boyfriends, and just cashing the checks is some sort of feminism because they’re choosing to live that life. That’s bulls—. I mean, what the f— are we really talking about here?”

[In fairness, Sinema has made other outrageous comments and proposed truly outrageous legislation, but we’re just sticking to one comment per candidate in this post.]

Prior to that, it was Phoenix lawyer and Democrat Steve Owens, running against JD Hayworth, who denigrated Arizona and his own Congressional District (at least the one he chose to run in) as…

“a little, rinky-dink congressional district in the state of Arizona.”

Ouch, Steve! Sorry we’re not ‘cool’ like Berkeley or Hyde Park. Arizonans rejected him that November.

And finally there was liberal Democrat Congressman Sam Coppersmith, running against now-Senator Jon Kyl in their 1994 Senate race. Coppersmith was caught on tape denigrating Arizona’s 4 C’s–cattle, citrus, copper and climate–which he deemed somehow beneath Arizona as a state. [I could not find that quote on Google because that race occurred, yes children, BEFORE there was a Google; it was even before a company called Netscape had its IPO! But trust me, he said it; I had my first political job as Research Director for Kyl’s campaign that year and I will never forget that insight into Coppersmith’s views of Arizona.]

Kyl dispatched Coppersmith easily that November.

So there you have it, a brief walk down memory lane. Four liberal Democrats pretending to be moderates. They keep their game face on as long as possible, but eventually, the mask slips, and Arizona voters see the real deal. Don’t worry, Dr. Carmona, you will have plenty of company with Sinema, Owens and Coppersmith in the private sector, and the Romney-Flake-Vernon Parker economy will enable all of you to get good jobs that are so lacking right now under Obamanomics.

Democrat Kyrsten Sinema, the criminal defense lawyer running for a Congressional seat in Arizona’s Ninth Congressional District, is touting her endorsement from a Far-Left lawmaker who was at the heart of the financial crisis that brought Arizona homeowners to their knees and destroyed the state’s economy.

Sinema was touting late last week a fundraising letter from Barney Frank, the disgraced Congressional Democrat who retired this year rather than face a tough re-election he would have likely lost. In the October 9 letter, Frank said, in part:

My friend Kyrsten Sinema will face her biggest decision this Friday and how much money she raises today will determine the size of her [advertising] buy.
Can you help Kyrsten Sinema so she can stay on the air and fight back? Kyrsten needs you today.
Thank you for all that you do! Together, we can help Kyrsten Sinema win.
On to November,
Barney Frank

While most candidates would hide support from Barney Frank, that letter was found on Sinema’s own website!

But what did Frank say when the Bush Administration tried to reform Fannie and Freddie in 2003, several years BEFORE the crash? As the NY Times quoted him:

“These two entities — Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — are not facing any kind of financial crisis.” said Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee. “The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.”

Oops. A few years later, Frank was proven wrong, but the price was paid by Arizonans and other Americans. Franks, then safe in a gerrymandered Massachusetts Congressional seat, kept fighting reform! His “Dodd-Frank” financial reform law, incredibly, enshrined the biggest banks as too big to fail (and thus guaranteed future bailouts) and did not even address Fannie or Freddie. They remain unreformed today.

Sure he helped destroy Arizona’s economy. But he can help Sinema raise money for her negative ads from Far-Left out-of-state activists. So rather than give Frank the scorn he deserves, she ties herself to him in a shameless fundraising pitch.

Bill Clinton is coming to Arizona Wednesday to try to make the state’s voters forget that Barack Obama, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi now run the Democratic Party. Playing on the American people’s nostalgia – and short memories – Clinton is coming to Arizona hoping to boost Richard Carmona with a joint visit to Tempe, where the Tucson Democrat and Obama Mini-me is particularly weak.

The problem is Bill Clinton and Kyrsten Sinema have an extremely rocky history, which will make for ONE AWKWARD EVENING IN ARIZONA.

Top Eight AWKWARD differences between Bill Clinton and Kyrsten Sinema

1. Just a few months ago, Bill Clinton assessed Sinema’s record, then decided to endorse a less extreme candidate in her Democratic Primary. But even with his endorsement, the candidate he backed lost. (Don’t tell Rubberstamp Rich Carmona.)

2. In 2008, Sinema endorsed not one, but TWO candidates against Hillary Clinton, Bill’s wife, in the Democratic Primaries for President. Sinema’s Anybody But Clinton strategy succeeded.

3. In 2000, Sinema backed radical Ralph Nader over liberal Al Gore, Clinton’s Vice President, and ran for office (unsuccessfully) against the Democrats in both 2001 and 2002 because she believed the Democrats “had moved too far to the center.” That’s the first time before or since anyone ever called Al Gore too moderate.

4. In her 2009 book, a how-to guide for left-wing community organizers to sound more reasonable, Sinema took a shot at Hillary Clinton, writing: “Letting go of outcomes is really hard to do at first. Some people liken their great solutions to their firstborn children and treat them as such. (Think Hillary Clinton and health care, circa 1993.)” Ouch. [“Unite and Conquer: How to build coalitions that win – and last,” by Kyrsten Sinema (2009) Berrett-Koehler Publishers, San Francisco, page 89.]

5. Clinton put the Democratic Leadership Council on the map, to move the Democratic Party away from the Fringe Left. Sinema is a big-wig at the Center for Progressive Leadership . . . yup, the very definition of Fringe Left.

6. Clinton signed the Defense of Marriage Act and created Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. Sinema made her name fighting those Clinton policies.

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